Who Slices the Salami?

Rushing from his airliner at Rome's Fiumicino Airport last week, Argentine President-Elect Hector Campora shouted: "!Hola, General!" Replied a tall and tanned Juan Peron: "Congratulations, Hector!" Then the two old politicians embraced, tears visible in their eyes.

That emotional encounter marked the triumphant reunion of patriarch and protege--although at times the roles seemed reversed. Campora had said that he was "going to see my boss." But Peron called himself only "a soldier of Campora" and added that "now it will be Mr. Campora who slices the salami." If so, it will be Mr. Peron who gets served the meal. The rendezvous in Rome was a confirmation of the bizarre victory by proxy that the 77-year-old Peron had engineered from Madrid after nearly two decades of exile.

In their luxurious adjoining suites at the Excelsior hotel the two men got down to details. Campora was told who his new Cabinet members would be and how best to reconcile what he called "deep and painful" differences within Peron's Justicialist political movement, which contains elements from both the far right and the radical left. Neither man would disclose what political decisions had been made, but their aides did provide some glimpses of Peron's ambitions for the "new Argentina."

Foremost is a plan to shift the country from an agricultural to an industrial base, which recalls the program that nearly wrecked the economy when Peron was in power. To help accomplish this shift there will be greater state participation in Argentina's economic and industrial life. While nationalization of major corporations is ruled out for the present, all of private industry will be more tightly regulated than it is now.

In the outside world, Peronist Argentina has hopes of playing an important neutralist role. Last week, while Peron received congratulations from Rumania's Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, Campora went off to an audience with Pope Paul VI, an honor that Peron himself was recently denied.

The question remains whether Peron can rule effectively by remote control. Memories of his past giveaways have already spurred worker unrest. Two weeks ago, some 5,000 policemen in La Plata struck for higher wages, then occupied and barricaded the police headquarters. The mini-revolt was quickly crushed by government tanks, leaving little doubt that the real power lies with the military establishment, which is still extremely wary of Peronism. Indeed, if Peron pushes too hard too fast from his headquarters in Madrid, there might well be another coup like the one that knocked him from power 17 years ago.

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